For many years, rocking chairs have been popular furniture pieces in the home. The repetitive rocking motion of the chair can be quite relaxing and comforting to a seated occupant. In addition, the appearance of the rocking chair is such that it can be used with a variety of furniture styles, particularly traditional styles with a heavy emphasis on visible wood.
In recent years, furniture designers have looked for alternatives to rocking chairs that can provide a similarly relaxing repetitive motion. One alternative has been the gliding chair, or "glider", which includes structure that enables the seat portion of the chair to "glide" forwardly and rearwardly relative to its base to mimic generally the rocking motion of a rocking chair. Often the gliding structure comprises a set of swing links that are pivotally attached at their upper ends to the base and extend downwardly therefrom to attach to a structure, such as a mounting bracket, that is attached to the seat. In this configuration, the seat is suspended from the base and is free to swing forwardly and rearwardly in a double pendulum-type motion in response to a forwardly or rearwardly-directed force applied by a seated occupant. The gliding path of the chair is controlled by the configuration and mounting of the swing links. These chairs can be constructed to resemble traditional rocking chairs and thus are quite popular.
Another type of seating unit that has become popular is the recliner chair. Recliners typically include some type of mechanism that, when actuated, causes the seat and backrest of the recliner to pivot relative to the base in order to place an occupant of the seating unit in a reclined position. Also, many recliners include an extendable footrest, or "ottoman," that extends forwardly of the seat and retracts beneath the seat as desired.
Reclining capability has been combined with gliding capability in a single unit to provide a chair that both reclines and glides. This chair includes a mechanism that enables it to move between upright and reclined positions, and further includes the aforementioned swing links attached between the base and the seat, armrests, or mechanism itself to enable the chair to glide. Examples of such chairs are illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,536,029 and 4,544,201, both to Rogers, Jr., and in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/957,409, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. In particular, the inclusion of an extendable ottoman can provide a comfortable seating unit.
Despite the advances described above, the gliding chairs with extendable footrests designed heretofore have some significant shortcomings and limitations. One of the more important limitations is the permissible size of the mechanism that extends the ottoman. The ottoman-extending mechanism must fit within the volume bounded by peripheries of the seat and the base, and must be positioned above the underlying surface a sufficient distance that the chair has adequate space to glide. This has been accomplished in large, bulky chairs such as those illustrated in the Rogers patents cited hereinabove, but many prior art mechanisms have been too large to use with a traditionally-sized rocking chair or glider, which typically have a cavity only about 8 to 10 inches in height and 16 to 18 inches in length available for a mechanism. Because of the space limitations, mechanisms that conserve space beneath the chair are desirable.
An additional design consideration for chairs having extendable ottomans is how the ottoman is stabilized in its retracted and extended positions. Commonly, the ottoman is moved from the retracted to the extended position via a handle or other releasing device, then is returned to the retracted position either through the use of the handle or by the occupant exerting a downwardly-directed force with his legs on the extended ottoman. If (as is often preferred) the chair relies on the occupant supplying the force to retract the ottoman, care should be taken in the design of the chair to ensure that the ottoman maintains its extended position and does not retract except when desired.
In addition, some prior chairs with extendable ottomans have suffered from instability problems. Unless some stabilizing mechanism is incorporated into the chair, the seat is free to glide relative to the base irrespective of whether the chair is in the upright position, a reclined position, or an intermediate position between the upright and reclined positions. As such, the occupant typically keeps his feet on the underlying surface for stability when the chair is in the upright position. Of course, when the chair moves from the upright position to one in which the ottoman is extended, the occupant moves his feet out of the way of the extending ottoman. As the occupant moves his feet from the floor, typically the chair reacts with a forward gliding movement. This gliding motion of the chair (along with the posture of the occupant) can give the occupant the feeling that he is being "pitched" forward during extension of the ottoman. Accordingly, it is desirable that a gliding unit having an extendable ottoman be configured to address this problem.